Ben Affleck has no interest in running for office.
The “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” star told Variety that trying to become a politician sounds “scary” and “tacky” to him.
“I just think it’s huge — I don’t know, man, it looks bad,” Affleck told the outlet while promoting a new movie in which he plays a Los Angeles mayoral candidate.
“There’s a reason political stories are often chosen as parables of moral compromise. You really get caught up in the contrast between an ideal version of who we are and how we should be and how we are in life.”
The 54-year-old called politics “a very depressing world to me. Tacky. It doesn’t appeal to me.”
He also declined to say who he is supporting for mayor of Los Angeles this November.
“I didn’t think about being asked that question. I don’t know if my endorsement would hurt or help anyone, given the film,” he admits. “I should remain agnostic, at least until the movie comes out.”
Affleck told “Good Morning America” on Wednesday that he believes “because of the way the political world has evolved, the collective bar for politics has gotten so low that people are just looking for ‘someone shoot me straight up’ or something like that.”
He added that whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, there’s a sense in the country that “we’re not doing a good job. Our system is kind of failing us.”
Playing someone running for mayor taught him: “It’s not that fun. And it’s going to be a tough road — you’re just raising money all the time.”
He said he and the man who plays the campaign manager in the movie decided one day to wear campaign shirts and hats with his character’s name on them, head to Los Angeles and claim he was running for mayor.
Affleck said that when he told people he was running as his character, voters would ask for selfies and they seemed interested, “and people would start talking about their whole thing, and I was like, ‘If I’m not careful, I’m going to win this election.'”
“Don’t vote for me for mayor!” he joked to the camera.
Affleck told USA TODAY in an interview with The Sacramento Bee this week that holding public office was a “terrible job,” adding that he was “very frustrated with the system and the politics and the politicians and the way they operate.”
When told that his campaign ad in the film was a good one, he responded: “I would be flattered, but I think the bar is pretty low in politics right now.”
Afu explained that his film “Animals” is about the moral compromises people make.
“When a person loses something, the most effective nature of it is that they are most susceptible to compromise,” he said. “Are we just self-serving animals who, in retrospect, make up stories to rationalize where we are and what we’re doing? There’s another part of us, our higher self, that says, ‘Okay, I’m going to abide by this moral code even if it costs me.'”
The actor has been politically active in the past, campaigning for candidates ranging from former Vice President Al Gore to former President Barack Obama.
But he said he was now “against” the idea because he had seen too much “hypocrisy, corruption and failure”.
“The way it’s constructed now is so around money, sound bites, cruelty and trappings, little acerbic things that have nothing to do with people’s lives,” he said. “Increasingly, it’s easier to attract the worst people to the ballot than the best people. If you’re telling a story about morality and compromise, there’s a lot of pressure constantly to sacrifice your principles.”